


put it down in the pleasure of your company

by SiderumInCaelo



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bisexual Harry Potter, Book 4: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Coming Out, Gen, Happy Ending, Light Angst, Male Friendship, Ron Weasley is a Good Friend, Yule Ball (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-21 14:56:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18143687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SiderumInCaelo/pseuds/SiderumInCaelo
Summary: Harry needs a date to the Yule Ball, and Ron is free.  The solution is obvious.





	put it down in the pleasure of your company

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thebiwholived](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebiwholived/gifts).



> Happy birthday Anna! I hope you like this!
> 
> Thanks to Disneyfanatic-kitty for beta'ing; your comments were most helpful.
> 
> The title is taken from "No Choir" by Florence + the Machine.

“Okay, you know what?  You need a date, I’m free, let’s just go together,” Ron said, in a tone of exasperation.

Harry suddenly felt hot, and very much hoped he wasn’t blushing.  “Ron, I’m not – I mean – I like girls,” he settled on, ignoring the squirming in his stomach at the half-truth.

But Ron waved his objection off.  “Yeah, I know, but since neither of us are having any luck _getting_ a girl, I figure this is the easiest solution.  I mean, unless there’s someone else you still want to ask –”

“No,” interjected Harry definitively.  “Asking Cho was more than enough,” he said, shuddering at the thought of repeating that experience.  “Besides, I’d have more fun with you than anyone else, I bet,” he added.

“Great,” said Ron, looking rather pleased with himself.  “That’s settled then.”

* * *

Harry was irrepressibly nervous as they approached the Great Hall.  For all of Ron’s nonchalance about going together, Harry was sure that showing up with another boy as his date – even if they were just going as friends – was asking for trouble.  But when they met the others waiting in the entrance hall, they garnered only a few curious looks (about as much attention as Harry tended to get on his own), much to his relief.

Professor McGonagall soon appeared and called the champions over.  As they followed her instructions, Harry found himself standing quite close to Cho and Cedric.  Cho was wearing robes of deep blue, accented with pale gold embroidery, while Cedric’s robes were of plain black, but perfectly tailored and with a lining in the same shade of gold.  Both were even more attractive than usual, and Harry hurriedly looked for a distraction.

He promptly found one, because Krum’s date turned out to be Hermione, wearing floaty, periwinkle robes and looking far more elegant and put-together than Harry had ever seen her.

“Hi Harry!  Hi Ron!” she said, looking rather nervous but also excited. 

“Hi Hermione,” Harry said back, but Ron just gaped at her in silence, until Harry elbowed him. 

“You, er, look very nice,” Ron managed in a strangled sort of voice.

Any further awkwardness was avoided by the opening of the Great Hall doors, and the champions and their partners were led over to the large round table at the top of the Hall, where the judges were sitting.

As they drew closer, however, Harry realized that Mr. Crouch was absent, and Percy Weasley was there instead, looking unbearably smug.  Percy pulled out the chair next to him and stared pointedly at Harry, who took the hint and sat in the offered chair, though not without some degree of reluctance – he didn’t want to spend dinner hearing about cauldron bottoms.

Ron dropped into the seat on Harry’s other side, and before either of them could say anything, Percy informed them that he had been promoted and was there representing Mr. Crouch, who was feeling too ill to attend.  Harry very much wanted to ask if Mr. Crouch had finally learned Percy’s name, but resisted the temptation.

Ron, however, apparently felt no such compunction.  “Has he stopped calling you ‘Weatherby’ yet?” he asked.

Harry forced down a grin as Percy’s smile became rather fixed.  “Yes,” he said stiffly.  “I must say, Ron, I wasn’t expecting to see you up here.”

Ron gave a casual, one-shouldered shrug.  “Neither of us had dates, so we figured the easiest solution was to go together.”

Percy opened his mouth, but they were saved from whatever his response would have been by Dumbledore prompting everyone to order their food. 

After his plate of goulash appeared, Harry looked over to Hermione, expecting her to be lamenting all the extra work this surely meant for the house-elves, but instead she was listening intently to Krum talk about Durmstrang, and seemed barely aware of what she was eating.

Glancing over, Harry noticed that Ron was watching her too, and doing a rather poor job of concealing his emotions, as he had his knife clenched in his fist and the tips of his ears were going red.  

Eager to avoid a scene, Harry cast about for a distraction, but their conversational options were limited.  Next to Harry, Percy was determinedly trying to sustain a discussion with Bagman about some minutiae of Ministry organization, while Cedric and Cho were murmuring softly to each other next to Ron.  Harry noticed that Cho was eating with her left hand, and suspected that they were holding hands under the table.  

Dragging his mind away from that train of thought, Harry asked Ron what he thought of the Chudley Cannons’ odds this season, something that Ron was sure to have an opinion of.  It mostly worked as a diversion, although Ron’s gaze continued to flicker towards Hermione every few minutes throughout dinner.

* * *

It caught Harry rather by surprise when the Weird Sisters took to the stage and the other champions stood up.  He hurried to follow them, tripping over his dress robes as he rose.

“I don’t know how to dance,” he admitted to Ron as they walked onto the dance floor.

“Neither do I, really,” said Ron.  “Just copy what the others are doing, it can’t be that hard.”

After some fumbling, they arranged themselves so that each had one hand on the other’s shoulder, their other hands clasped together.  Harry hoped his palms weren’t too sweaty.

It was thoroughly nerve-wracking, even a bit surreal, to be standing in the middle of a dance floor with another boy, with what felt like hundreds of eyes on him.  Even though he and Ron weren’t together as a couple – and he didn’t wish that they were – he couldn’t shake the feeling that it was an admission of his sexuality all the same, which was scary but also… liberating. 

With all that running through his mind, it was perhaps unsurprising that when the music started, he could barely get his legs to move, much less do anything resembling a real dance.  He did his best to just follow Ron, but that strategy quickly ran into problems.

“Harry, why aren’t you leading?” Ron asked.

“I thought you were!”

“Why would I be leading?  You’re the champion!”

“Yeah, but you’re – taller!”

Ron laughed at that and, after a moment, so did Harry, which effectively broke the tension.  By the time they had composed themselves, other couples had also entered the dance floor, so no one was paying attention as they shuffled through the rest of the song.

“Please tell me that’s enough dancing for you,” Harry said the instant the last note was played.

“Absolutely,” said Ron.

“Thank God,” Harry said fervently, as they left the dance floor in search of a table.

They made a detour by the drinks table to grab a couple bottles of butterbeer, where they made small talk for a few minutes after running into Dean and Seamus, but they eventually claimed an empty table for themselves.

They sat in silence for a while, observing the activity around them, but finally Ron’s blatant staring at Hermione and Krum, who were now taking a break from dancing by the drinks, grew too much for Harry to endure.

“You could still ask her for a dance, you know,” Harry suggested.

“Who says I want to dance with Hermione?” Ron said immediately.

Harry refrained from rolling his eyes, but only just.  “You’ve been staring at her all evening.”

Ron didn’t argue the point further, but neither did he seem inclined to take Harry’s advice.  “She didn’t say she didn’t want to go with you, just that Krum had asked first,” Harry persisted.

“Why aren’t you asking Cho to dance, then?” Ron countered, gesturing over to where Cho and Cedric were swaying on the dance floor, quite close together.

“They don’t look like they want to be interrupted,” Harry pointed out.  “Either of them,” he added without thinking.

“Cedric doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to get possessive about someone else cutting in.”

“No, that’s not – I meant –” he stumbled, then took a breath and decided that he didn’t want to lie about this.  “Ron, you remember how when you suggested we come together I said I liked girls?”

“Yeah,” said Ron, with curiosity but no apprehension in his voice.

“Well, I – I do like girls.  But,” Harry forced himself to take a breath, “I also like boys, I think.” 

He waited for the fallout – Ron looking disgusted or even leaving – but Ron just nodded.  “So, you fancy Cedric then?  And Cho?”

“Yeah.”

“Tough luck there,” Ron responded, patting him on the shoulder.  “Still, plenty of other people out there, right?”

But Harry was still hung up on Ron’s easy acceptance.  “You… you don’t mind?  That I’m…”

“Bi?” Ron finished for him.  “’Course not.”  He paused, then said, “As long as you don’t fancy Malfoy.”

Harry snorted.  “Never,” he promised, pulling a face.

“Good,” said Ron.  “But seriously Harry, you’re my best mate; who you like doesn’t change that.  And it won’t change anything with Hermione, or anyone else who matters.”

Harry wished he could express just how much that meant to him, but he settled for, “Thanks, Ron.

“And,” he added in a lighter tone, “as your best mate, I’m telling you that you should ask Hermione to dance.”

“What if she says no?”

“Then she says no, and it’s not the end of the world.  But she might say yes.”

“All right,” Ron said after a moment’s indecision, and downed the rest of his butterbeer before standing and walking over to Hermione and Krum.  Harry couldn’t make out any of the ensuing conversation, but after a minute Ron and Hermione walked to the dance floor together, while Krum stayed behind, looking slightly chagrined.

Ron was, admittedly, not as good of a dancer as Krum, but he at least managed not to step on her feet, and Hermione seemed to be enjoying herself, judging by her smile. 

Although Harry had encouraged Ron, and he was glad his advice had proved successful, he found there was a strange sort of melancholy in watching Ron pull a giggling Hermione into an exaggerated under-the-arm twirl, while he sat by himself.

When the next song – a more upbeat one – started, Harry expected them to either keep dancing together, or for Hermione to go back to Krum.  Instead, they pulled apart but stayed on the dance floor, and gestured at Harry to join them. 

He resisted at first, not terribly eager to stumble around surrounded by other people again, but they kept beckoning, and didn’t seem like they were going to stop, so he gave in and made his way over to them. 

Harry still felt stupid, bouncing around in time to the music.  But Ron and Hermione were hopping along beside him, grinning incessantly, and as Harry focused on that – doing a normal teenager thing with his best friends – he found he was actually having fun.


End file.
